Swimming Lessons
by Dandy in the Aspic
Summary: Shepard punishes Jack and Grunt is very outside his comfort zone. ME2 era humour piece. Not to be taken very seriously. Iron Fic challenger. Jack and some water.


_This was written for Iron Fic on tumblr. I had a ton of fun with it but it has not really been edited or beta-d because it was a strictly one hour time challenge. The challenge subject was Jack and water (because I was pathetic I still snuck in a cameo Shenko). As ever I'd love to hear your thoughts. Writing from a perspective not of Kaidan's or Shepard's was hard for me. Please forgive any errors._

The Presidium was its usual bright, airy self. The artificial sunlight lent an almost summery atmosphere for the dangerous task Jack was about to attempt. It was the shittiest thing Shepard could think of to torture her with after she'd got drunk on Omega and accidently on purpose punched Garrus out cold. Her fucking knuckles still stung. That bony turian bastard.

Shepard had saw fit to punish Jack by making her Grunt's _swim instructor._

The baby krogan was useless in Jack's opinion. The last planet they'd been on one of Shepard's fucking 'save all the baby animals and every man and his dog' crusades; Grunt had step on a thin sheet of ice and plunged right through. He'd flailed in there like a scared baby turtle until Shepard had stripped down to her undies, dived in and hauled his ass out.

Jack could have sworn Shepard had kissed him better on the head. Fucking pussies. Shepard was far too soft.

But man, she was a bitch when she wanted to be. Shepard had used her newly re-instated Spectre status to discreetly 'requisition' a section of the Presidium lake for Grunt to splash around in. Which as far as Jack could tell involved any C-SEC officers wandering by to mind their own damn business and move along.

"Jack, Battlemaster said you had to teach me to swim. So what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

The krogan was all bravado but the effect was ruined slightly by the bright yellow duck floaties Shepard had bought and attached to his large muscular arms.

Christ. She needed a cigarette.

"Alright, in ya hop krogan. Temperature's fine and all that."

"I'll sink. Battlemaster Shepard said you had to come in with me."

Jack heaved a giant sigh. This was what her life was now. A fucking glorified babysitter on Shepard's freak show _Normandy. _

"Fine. I'll hop in with you."

Not caring who was looking Jack shucked her pants. Small favours she'd put underwear on today at least. Jack dived right in. The water was warm as it looked, and actually quite bright and clear. She hoped one of those fancy back-stabbing ambassadors hadn't dumped a dead body in.

"Ok Grunt. Look the water's fine. Just hop in with me."

Gingerly, (and wasn't that a word never associated with a krogan before) he dipped one massive leg in. He paused and then gradually lowered his whole body in. He was breathing hard his small beedy eyes large with clear fright.

Jack felt a _small, tiny, so minuscule as not to be there really, twinge_ of pity. She paddled over to him.

"Look Grunt, ya big baby, I won't let you drown ok? Shepard would kill me. I've got you. What you've got to do is move your arms and legs in tandem ok? Kinda like in battle, just keep them moving all the time and instead of not getting shot, you're avoiding drowning. Easy."

He was an overlarge, flailing picture of awkwardness but the advice seemed to be working. With his floaties at least he wasn't sinking and he had a little forward momentum.

"Ok so I want you to try and swim to that krogan statue now. Would figure that would motivate you. And don't look at me like that ya pussy. You can do it! Are you a krogan or a whiny salarian?"

Grunts expression was the picture of misery. At some point he'd taken a nose-full of water and it had made his nose run with spectacular krogan boogers. Jack wanted to hop out of here and drink a gallon of ryncol. And fucking kill Shepard.

"Hah! That's right! Salarian's are amphibian. They'd have you beat in two seconds flat. No wonder they screwed the krogan over so good if you can't even swim!"

That did it. A fierce rage and concentration entered his small eyes and he was suddenly stroking unevenly in the direction of the statue. Jack trailed behind him with a leisurely backstroke, her tattoos gleaming colourfully in the fake sun. It really was nice once you got past the tank-bred krogan part. The water was warm and hey! At least Shepard hadn't made her scrub the _Normandy's _toilets like she'd made Ken when he'd made that crack about Samara's rack. Jack thought he'd got off lightly compared to what Samara would have done. _That bitch was crazy._

Eventually they made it there. As Jack looked up to her utter dismay there was Garrus in a tiny thing that passed for a turian speedo and Tali in…well what she usually wore.

"Having fun Jack?" Garrus mandibles flapped in the turian version of a shit eating grin. She wanted to punch him.

"Shut up. I'm doing real good and you can run along and tell Shepard that. He's practically swimming like a pro."

Grunt decidedly did not look like a 'pro', gasping and clutching the base of the statue. Whatever.

"Errr we can't do that. She met up with Staff Commander Alenko at Flux and said she had 'Spectre' business to take care of." The quarian answered, mimicking air quotes to denote that she thought Shepard was taking care of anything but Spectre business. Huh. Jack made it a rule to never bet with anything that she couldn't afford to lose but she would bet her sweet ass Shepard was taking _care_ of something alright.

"That dirty bitch. Here I am working my ass off. Left holding the baby practically! And she's off having hate sex with her boyfriend!"

"Well I wouldn't put it exactly like that and especially not to her face but…yeah pretty much. Sucks to be you." Garrus sounded distinctly amused.

"JACK! HELP ME AHHJRJFhF!"

Somehow that useless sack of krogan crap had got one of his floaties punctured. He was horribly lopsided, one side of his face bobbing beneath the surface. With an aggrieved sigh Jack made her way to him and yanked him up onto the krogan Rachni War statue.

He looked awful. Whatever passed for krogan blood had drained from his face and he was the krogan version of milk white. Jack did actually feel sorry for him now. When they taught her to swim as a kid, the scientist had just thrown her in. Ran tests. It shouldn't be like that.

"Come on Gruntie. Good job alright? You have a rest now. Shepard will be happy with your effort, alright?"

"You-you think so Jack? Battlemaster will be happy?"

"Oh yeah. She thinks you're great. Ok we'll go get you a treat ok? I'm sure Garrus here would like to catch you a nice fish. Won't you Garrus?"

"See no. Turians don't really swim, I just dressed like this because I thought it'd annoy you."

"Oh no Garrus. You're finding him a fish. Or I'll tell Shepard you told me her and Alenko were having hate sex. You know she hates gossip, Garrus."

Tali was stifling giggles, her hands pressed to her mask.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me _Gar_. There's precious few things in this world I haven't fucking done. You wanna gamble on that now?"

"Fine. I'll get the damn krogan a fish." With and aggrieved sigh, he flounced off. His bony turian ass wiggled as he went.

"Jack. That was perfect!" Tali was laughing at earnest now, apparently she got her rocks off teasing Garrus. Who knew?

"Can we go find Battlemaster now? I want to tell her that I'm a good swimmer now and won't let her down in any battle terrain."

"Yeah yeah. You big sook. We'll go get her."

They made their way to the Spectre outpost. Jack was half hoping to get a glimpse of Shepard's old boyfriend's ass. Sure enough when the rag tag group, still dripping wet burst in the Spectre office there he was.

Jack keyed up the camera function of her Omni-tool and took a pic. Humanity's first human Spectre sure enough was boning Alenko against a wall.

"JACK!" Shepard fairly shrieked. Alenko made a quick retreat, simultaneously looking embarrassed, frustrated and angry.

"We just wanted to tell you what a good job Grunt did today Sheppard! After all that was my punishment right?"

"Battlemaster! Jack was great. I pronounce her our aquatic warrior."

Shepard decided to never punish Jack again.


End file.
